1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to upholstery technology and more particularly, to a floorboard assembly that uses fasteners to fasten floor boards for flooring.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional high beam frame construction methods for hardwood flooring are time consuming and costly. In recent years, with the construction quality improvement, the flooring technique of directly laying hardwood floor boards over an existing floor has been gradually adopted by the people. Before installing hardwood floor boards over a floor, people normally will apply a layer of glue to the floor, and then lay hardwood floor boards over the floor. However, applying a layer of glue to the floor is expensive and not environmentally friendly.
The inventor of the present invention created a design of floorboard assembly for laying rectangular floor boards over an existing floor transversely and longitudinally without glue. According to this design, as seen in Taiwan Patent M271046, the floorboard assembly consists of a plurality of floor boards and fasteners. Each floor board comprises a first coupling portion and a second coupling portion. When fastening each two adjacent floor boards during the floorboard installation operation, engage one end of each fastener into the second coupling portion of one floor board, and then engage the other end of each fastener into the first coupling portion of the other floor board, and then affix wood screws to the fasteners and the two floor boards. According to this design, it needs to affix wood screws to the fasteners and the floor boards, thus, there is still room for improvement.
In order to eliminate the drawbacks of the aforesaid prior art design of floorboard assembly, U.S. Pat. No. 7,805,903 discloses a locking system for floor boards. This improved design eliminates the use of wood screws. However, in order to enable the locking devices to be smoothly hooked on the floor boards, a gap is left between the horizontal platform of the third protruding gripping extension of each locking device and the tongue of the mating floor board, however, this structural design can lead to loosening of the locking devices from the floor boards. In order to overcome this problem, a tooth is formed on the top of the second protruding gripping extension for jamming into the surface of the locking groove of the mating floor board to prevent locking device loosening. However, jamming the tooth into the surface of the floor board can cause a destructive damage to the floor board, making the floor board difficult to re-use.
In view of the aforesaid various problems, the inventor of the present invention disclosed another improved design of floorboard assembly, entitled “Modular floor”, which eliminates the use of wood screws or glue, or the design of a tooth for jamming into the surface of the floor board. However, when laying the modular floor over an existing floor that is not rectangular, for example, the floor in a house that has a main room 1 and a compartment 2 (or stairs, passageway, etc.), the worker generally will select one of the four sides of the main room 1 as a reference line 3, and then start the installation from the reference line 3 in direction toward the compartment 2. However, the assembled modular floor may be unable to fit the floor area of the main room 1 perfectly. In order to maintain the integrity and sense of beauty of the whole floor area of the main room 1, it is necessary to install decorative components over the floor area between the installed modular floor and the compartment 2, complicating the installation operation. In order to avoid this problem, the worker can take one partition wall between the main room 1 and the compartment 2 for defining a reference line 70, and then lay floor boards over the floor surface leftwards and rightwards from this reference line 70. However, prior art floorboard designs are simply suitable for installation over a floor surface in one single direction, not practical for installation in two reversed directions.